Politics: A New Day for Fighting Corruption
Last week’s passage of laws that will effectively create a National Anti-corruption System is a development of enormous importance. For the first time Mexico has legally typified the sorts of activities that constitute acts of corruption, clearly defined those who are bound by the law and its filing requirements, and spelled out the bases for a more active coordination between the various authorities responsible for fighting and preventing corruption.
Civil society groups played an unprecedented role by campaigning to get the matter on the political agenda, defining the basic concepts and scope of the necessary legislation, and by successfully pushing for citizen representation, verification and control in the form of a Council of Citizen Participation. In the process, they have constituted a constant and active counterweight to the political class, making it difficult for any further changes to relevant laws or lack of effectiveness in applying the laws to go unnoticed.
The bitterest point of the debate was over whether the declarations of assets and material fiscal interests public officials will now have to file would be made public. The governing party and its allies defeated that idea in Congress and then pushed through an amendment requiring all private contractors and individuals providing goods and services to the government make similar declarations; reform advocates took those last minute changes to be a form of political revenge for the criticisms leveled by business leaders
It is not yet clear just how the current conflict between the government and business owners might be resolved. Individuals in the private sector and their businesses also play a major role and are complicit in acts of corruption by public officials, but the new reporting requirements can significantly complicate the provisioning of works and services and generate innumerable problems in the operation of basic public services such as health care.
The government will not propose Congress rescind this part of the law without getting something in return. The PRI must pay the political cost of shielding the financial disclosures of public officials from public scrutiny, but the government will force the private sector to pay a price for this reform, especially those in the business community that were most strident in their campaign for the reform, particularly the company owner's union, Coparmex.
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